


things you said...

by embryonic



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fic Meme, Ficlets, Future Fic, alcohol mention, death mention, less of a fix-it fic more of a total disregard for canon, there may or may not be more added depending on how much time i have to fill the remaining prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:56:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7745812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embryonic/pseuds/embryonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of prompts originally posted on tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. things you said after you kissed me

When you kiss her in an elevator with a gun in your hand and her coat in your fist, she doesn’t say anything, but she does scream: a sound from behind the metal of the gate that lingers in your head for months, the ghost of a feeling in the pit of your stomach that does not go away.

When you kiss her for the 23rd time, she says, “Missed you, Sam,” but it’s not her, really, just a refraction of light, the illusion of a sound. Wrong.

When you kiss her for the 405th time, she says, “Wouldn’t have pegged you for the soft type, Shaw,” and you bite her tongue instead of yours. Wrong.

When you kiss her for the 1,029th time, she says, “Sorry,” and by now you’ve gotten the hang of this game - you’re only biding your time when you ask “What for?” and she says, “I wish we’d done this sooner.” Wrong.

When you kiss her for the 6,741st time, she says, “You’re safe here.” And you nearly believe her. (You stop kissing her after that.)

And then you’re in a prison in Johannesburg, and the back of a cramped truck in Mexico, and a rooftop in New York, a week in to what you hope to god isn’t another simulation.

When you kiss her in the morning by the bridge, she only looks at you fondly and smirks. You say, “Reality looks good on you, Root.”


	2. things you said when you thought i was asleep

Your forehead is pressed up against a hip or a thigh, or some other soft, warm body part that’s relaxed you enough to drift off while Root works on some project in bed, fervently typing away in a her nerdy librarian glasses like she didn’t just spend the evening fucking you into oblivion.

You’re not sure what’s woken you up: your severe dehydration or the soft murmur of her voice, deep in the midst of a conversation that you’ll only ever hear one side of. Probably a bit of both, but you’re too sore to move – too comfy and sated to consider anything other than pressing into her closer, flush up against her skin. She pets your hair, goes on talking in a quiet voice; the one you’ve come to recognize is just for Her. 

“I know you think you want to know what it’s like,” she says, “but you don’t; trust me. You’re perfect. You don’t want something like feelings corrupting your data.”

Shaw wonders what question it is now, what thing about the world She only seems to trust Root enough to answer. It’s a fundamental difference between she and The Machine: She always wants to know the details, the intimate crevices of Root’s emotions, not content with the one-word answers, the wide open expressions on her face. 

She always wants to know more and all Shaw wants to do when confronted with that sort of thing is press into Root, make her feel something else, something she can control. Often, all she knows how to do is look away; Root shines too bright sometimes, like driving down a highway when the afternoon sun is at its peak.

“Stick to the textbook definition,” she hears Root tell Her, “Maybe read some Sappho if you’re really curious. But,” she says, the hand on Shaw’s back shifting in patterns, “I don’t think you need me to explain it you, really. Who says you need feelings to understand love?”


	3. things you didn't say at all

Sometimes, you say things without ever really processing them at all. You hear a voice, you say the words, you get a reaction.

You remember the adrenaline rush you used to get, back when you heard Her voice through an ear wig, when god mode was brand new, and for the first time in your life, the world didn’t seem like a mess of random data: there were answers and plans and she trusted you with all of them. She gave you words to speak and you spoke them.

She said, “October 2nd, 1988,” and the tiny flare of Sameen Shaw’s nostrils in response to your voice was one of the most thrilling things you’d ever exoerienced in your life. (Later, you’ll hear the rest of the story - a car on fire, a little girl with a half-eaten sandwich and a dead father – and you won’t feel guilty, really; Sameen never seemed like the type to respond well to sympathy anyway.)

Now, you don’t get the adrenaline rush nearly as often; Her voice in your head is more of a comfort than a thrill and there are moments when you honestly do not know if you’d be able to function without it.

Sometimes, you’ll be on a mission and She’ll have to go dark and it will seem as though you are blindly feeling your way through the world for a few severe moments. Or, you’ll be in the middle of a conversation with someone, tired and uninterested, and service will cut out and your mind will go blank, just, a wide plane of nothingness. “Sorry – what were you saying?” you’ll ask, waiting for Her voice to come back so you don’t have to navigate the web of human interactions alone.

It’s those times when you’re thankful for Shaw’s acute ability to sense when you’re running on empty. She’s not a voice in your ear, but she’s a hand on your back, or a reassuring nod, a steady presence that can’t be severed by electricity. The concept of functioning without either of them has the potential to set off the sort of critical malfunction you’re not wired to handle.

You don’t think about it. Sameen gives you a look, sometimes, asks, “doing okay?” and your only frame of reference is: “can you hear me?”

You smile wide. The absolutely goes unspoken.


	4. things you said when you were crying

Sometimes, The Machine tells you stories. Sometimes they’re fiction, sometimes they’re real; you like it best when you can’t tell which. Sometimes She talks to you about probability. About the likelihood of certain outcomes, the various ways that things play out, the ways that things could have been.

In one scenario, you are an assassin and She is a single line of abandoned code. In another, you’re shot in the chest and She is a version of you: your voice, your code. In another, you are a little girl from Texas with a friend who never died, and She never had a reason to find you at all.

Sameen does not tell you her stories. She has versions, too, you know, but they’re all the kind that end the same way: and then I woke up. She tells you about a simulation, once, and the question comes out of you before you can stop it, “did you ever think it was real?”

Shaw blinks and says unsteadily, “Sometimes,” she admits, “I came close. I think I wanted to believe it was real more than anything.”

Sometimes Shaw lives like she is still in a simulation, like reality is something that needs to be tested. You’ll catch her with such a guarded, cautious look on her face. Sometimes she wakes up with a knife in her hands. Sometimes she refuses to look at you at all. Her stories are all, Once upon a time, I was safe. And then I woke up.

You used to think that stories were comforting: perhaps not the stories themselves, but the idea of them all, that there are other dimensions, other versions of yourselves that are just as valid, in a way. Reality was never something you had much of an appreciation for.

But then, you wake up in a warm bed beside her, with a dog and a home and god in your ear. The Machine tells you a story: once upon a time, you weren’t safe. And then you came home.

Sameen asks, “why are you crying?”

In your ear, The Machine says, “probability of accuracy: 100%”.

You say, “Because I like this version the best.”


	5. things you said with no space between us

You’re standing, pressed tightly together on an overcrowded subway with one hand begrudgingly placed on Root’s hip to keep yourself upright. The subway lurches to a halt and before you can even sigh in relief at the extra space that the passengers getting off allows, an even bigger group of them floods in until you’re once again forced flush up against Root.

You fucking hate public transportation; you should have just let Root steal a goddamn car like she’d wanted to.

A woman with a crying infant in her lap and an overly squirmy toddler sits beside you. The toddler stares at you and you look away, remaining uncomfortably aware that she continues to stare unabashedly.

“I think you she likes you,” says Root smarmily.

“It’s not mutual.”

The subway continues to sway and lurch, gravity tilting your body into Root’s. Without any space to hold on, you dig your hand harder into her hip, just because.

“Careful, Sameen,” she says, “I’m all for a little exhibitionism, but there are children around.”

She’s entirely too smug. The subway lurches again and you use the momentum to your advantage this time, pressing yourself up close to her ear and saying something entirely inappropriate in Farsi, not even bothering to keep it at a whisper.

You wait a few seconds, until Root’s slight blush lets you know that The Machine has translated. You smirk; it makes the rest of the ride slightly less intolerable.


	6. things you said when you were drunk

“What were we supposed to be celebrating again?” asks Root, stabbing at the olive in her martini with a toothpick.

You take a break from your steak to look at her in warning. “Root.”

“Oh that’s right,” she says, finishing off her drink with a wry smile, “the anniversary of our mutual friends’ deaths - you’ve got some sauce on your tie, Lionel - think the calamari makes up for the fact that their graves were unmarked?”

“Root.”

“No it’s fine,” she says, “really. I’m sure they’d be proud that the only 3 people who know what they died for are spending the anniversary of the world’s first AI apocalypse at a restaurant that accepts groupons. Good call by the way officer Fusco; what was the deal – buy two meals get one free?”

“That’s it,” says Lionel, dropping his utensils in defeat, “I was trying to do a nice thing; thought we could pay our respects, but I’ve had enough of bein’ treated like a moron by you nutbag. I’m outta here.”

He drops a wad of cash on the table and you roll your eyes on his behalf. It’s the least you can do. You’ve got to hand it to the man, he’s sat through 45 minutes of Root’s increasingly vicious version of appropriate dinner conversation and, frankly, you’re surprised he’s lasted this long. She’s been using him as her own personal punching bag all night, and you’ve somehow managed to get in the line of fire a few times as well. You’re pretty tempted to leave yourself - and would have, probably, if it weren’t for the damn good steak this restaurant serves.

“You know,” you tell Root once he’s gone, “you’re kind of an asshole when you’re drunk.”

“You’ve never seen me drunk, Sameen.”

“That’s probably a good thing, considering.”

“Considering what,” says Root, “Lionel’s temper tantrum or your absent sense of humor? Must’ve been another casualty of war.”

-

You remain a good few paces ahead of her on the walk home; far enough to let the annoyance seep out of your veins but close enough to make sure she doesn’t do something stupid like pick a fight with a random passerby. When you get home, you take off your shoes wordlessly, grab a beer from the fridge and sink into the couch. The TV flips on as Root downs a glass of water in the kitchen. She sits beside you, leaving some space between.

“Want me to apologize?” she asks.

“No,” you say, forcing the tension from your shoulders. You’re not mad, really; you’re pretty sure you know why Root’s acting like a dick and can’t quite hold it against her. You shift toward her, look at her face, “I don’t need that. And besides, I wouldn’t ask you to lie.”

She smiles a little at that. “Oh,” she says, “that’s good.”

“Lionel could probably use a peace offering though.”

She shrugs, “She’s already arranged to have a box of donuts delivered in the morning.”

She puts her hand over her forehead and lies across the couch so that her heads in your lap. “Still drunk?” You ask, setting your beer on her stomach. She shivers a little at the cold.

“Not drunk,” she says, “just…woozy. She says I’ll be fine in about an hour.”

“I don’t like it,” she frowns, “drinking like this.”

“Then don’t.”

She pauses, “it was a celebration,” she says, “that’s what people do isn’t it?”

“Commemoration,” you correct. “Or something. I dunno. I’m not very good at this stuff either.”

“I woke up happy today,” she admits after a moment, “and then I remembered, and – it felt like I took something that doesn’t belong to me.”

You don’t quite know what to do with that. Root’s eyes have that hardened look in them, steely, like she’s stuck on a problem she thinks cant be solved. You put fingers in her hair, trace the shell of her good ear. She’s such a fragile thing, sometimes; like the glass figurine your father gave you as a kid – you never asked for it, didn’t want it, really – but it was always better when it was in one piece, up on your windowsill with the light shining through it.

You say, “It’s okay to be happy to be alive, Root.”

She smiles a little; her eyes are closed and she says, “We’re getting there.”


	7. things you said under the stars and in the grass

Despite Root’s legs being nearly twice as long as yours, she stills manages to run at half the pace you do. You’re jogging in little circles up at the crosswalk by the park while you wait for her to catch up and Bear looks up at you from his leash, anxious to keep moving.

“You go ahead,” says Root from a few paces away, all flushed in the face and breathless under the streetlights, “I’ll meet up with you back at the apartment. I’m just gonna take a little break.”

You roll your eyes. “We just took a break.”

“Well I’m taking another break. She says I need to rest.”

“She did not say that.”

“She says a lot of things you wouldn’t believe, Shaw.”

You take your phone out of the band on your arm. “What’s Root’s heart rate?”

/135 beats per minute. no signs of over-exertion/

“She says you’re fine.” Root glares at a security camera. “You’re barely even breaking a sweat.”

“Sameen.”

“Root.”

“Sameeeen.”

“Ugh, fine,” you say, unclipping Bear from his leash so he can run around the park a bit and following Root to the spot of grass she’s already taking up residence on. “Five minutes and then were running laps up that staircase by the bank.”

“Ten minutes.”

“Five.”

“Eight.”

“Five.”

“Fifteen.”

“Root.”

You’re not looking at her but you know the exact type of smile she’s wearing – the sort she puts on when she thinks she’s won something, smugly delighted in her own annoyance. You can feel her eyes on you as you stretch a little, pull at the muscles in your calves, your thighs.

“You can finish your run if you want,” she says, “we both know I’m not doing those stairs with you.” 

Your eyes roll in answer and you sigh, leaning back onto your elbows beside Root, who’s lying with her head propped up on an elbow. You don’t need the extra cardio really; you already ran a few miles this morning before your workout. The only reason you dragged Root out for a run is because she’d been having one of those weeks where she spends 99% of her time in front of a computer screen. She’d flown in from Amsterdam two nights ago and you’re pretty certain she hasn’t moved away from her laptop since then.

You shake your head a little, “You need to work on your stamina.”

She practically guffaws. “We both know I have plenty of stamina, sweetie. I just like to conserve my energy for the things that matter.”

“Uh huh,” you say, “let me know how that works out for you next time you’re being chased by someone with a gun.”

“Let me know how that works out for you next time I’m giving you your tenth orgasm in a row, darlin’.”

“Sure Root,” you say, “If you’re not too busy nursing the gun wound from my scenario, I’ll let you know.”

She tsks and you lie on your back. There’s not many stars visible, you realize; it’s more like lying under a sky of city lights, all shiny and artificial.

“There’s too much light pollution in New York,” you say, “I’m beginning to forget what stars look like.”

“Never took you for the star gazing type, Shaw,” she teases.

You shrug, “My dad knew a lot about astronomy,” you explain, “he used to tell me about all the constellations.”

Root hums a little at that, then smirks at you like she’s starting to scheme.

“What,” you ask.

“Wait for it,” she says softly; and then, the lights start to blink out one by one, until the city of New York is suffering from a three-minute blackout.

Oh. It’s dark and still and kind of spectacular.

Root is grinning up at the sky, her smile wide and electric. It’s not often you get to see her like that, all unbridled happiness - and you’re struck by a warmth creeping through you, this feeling that ebbs and flows, one you’ve grown sort of accustomed to by now. It lingers for a little while longer this time, long enough for you to look at Root, smiling, and just think oh; maybe that’s what that is.

The lights start to blink back on and you shiver at the change. Bear trots back over to the two of you and stands at your feet, his head cocked to te side like he’s not sure what to make of all of it. Neither are you, really.

“Race you home,” says Root, hooking the leash back onto Bear’s collar “loser has to spank the winner so she doesn’t let the victory go to her head.”

Root gets a head start but, still; it’s a close thing.


End file.
